BobbyD wrote:Moderator Message:
Copyrighted image changed to a link. - Chris
It's a press release conspicuously missing any copyright notification but including a statement of source, almost as though it is supposed to be republished...
odysseus2000 wrote:If the VW numbers are real, not just for the media then VW are betting the whole business on this strategy.
It's a lot of money, but VW are one of the biggest spenders on R&D on the planet. It's how they do.
It's a big bet, but it isn't the whole business, the clue would be in the ~40% of investments in R&D and tangible assets figure a not insignificant part of which is destined for hybridisation... that would leave ~60% being spent on other things.
This may work out, but at the proposed levels of spend if anything unexpected happens the whole company will be in trouble.
That's a a step up from your standard dead company walking assessment...
Historically huge changes in direction accompanied by huge spend have regularly ended in disaster. Anyone remember UK's GE?
This isn't a huge change in direction, VW have been spending significant amounts of cash on electrification for a while now, despite your fervent denial, and it is actually just a continuation of business as usual, research, design, build, sell, profit...
It represents an increase from around 30% of spending in those categories to about 40%. Sounds a little less dramatic, doesn't it?
Still it's interesting to hear you change from they aren't taking electric seriously they are doomed, to they are taking electric too seriously they are quite possibly doomed. Consistency of outcome regardless of the working required to reach the conclusion...
VW are admitting they have got things very badly wrong & are trying, or at least indicating to the media, that they now get it & are panicking to catch up.
No Ody, it really isn't. It is entirely in keeping with VW's previous approach to electric, which has been to spend slightly lower amounts of money on research, design and production of BEV's. Remember those phantom factories which didn't exist which are now producing the electric models which were the fevered product of a PR departments imagination until they entered production, billions spent on developing the MEB and PPE platforms for BEV's, the 20% stake in Northvolt, the battery development and pilot production line in Salzgitter, the VW/Northvolt joint project also in Salzgitter, the massive battery contracts...
Again, it represents an increase from around 30% to around 40%. That's progression in a developing market, not panic.